We need more information from you. While you be starting from a nuc or pacage of bees. If you can find the nucs they would be better becouse the bees would have some brood to get them started already. But finding a nuc on med. frame might be diffacult. If you could I would use one hive body on the bottom and the supers for the rest. I nuc will have five frams of brood and food in it. So it should not take them to long to draw out the rest of the foundation in the hive box. I have been told that once they get down to two frames you should add a new box to the hive. I would put one of your med. frames down in the hive box, it would give the bees a place to draw out drone comb. Then ever so offten you could pull the drone comb off and inspect for mites. I would frezze the comb for 48 hours be for desposing of it to make sure you killed all of the mites. If you just use med. supers I would whatch for swarms as the hive getts stronger this summer. They will not have as much room as in a hive body. If your hive is strong enough during the nector flows. To help prevent them from swarming you could move some of your brood to the top super above the honey supers. Then just watch for the queen cells that they may try to build and kill them. It this point they should just start foraging full time becouse they will not have the time to make anouther queen. These are just a few thoughts I had. I hope they help.

Three mediums is a great way to go! They are not only lighter to lift, but all of your equipment will be uniform!

Honey production, swarm prevention, and colony build up should all be the same as using deeps, the bees don't know the difference between three mediums and two deeps, it's all usable space to them! If you're making your own splits, then you have no worries there either, it'll all be your equipment.

Brian brings up a good point about nucs, if you ever want to buy a nuc they will come on deep equipment but there are ways around this also. If you had one or two deep boxes to put on the bottom, and stacked your mediums on top of them, once the bees move up out of that deep, you can just rotate it out of the hive.

Good choice for light weight and uniformity! Good luck! :D

Logged

By the rude bridge that arched the floodTheir flag to Aprils breeze unfurledHere once the embattled farmers stoodAnd fired the shot heard round the world-Emerson

I am in the same position as Fred. The mediums look attractive from a weight and uniformnity viewpoint. The only downside mentioned concerns the acquisition of nucs. Is that a big deal? How often would a hobbyist purchase a nuc?

Are there other downsides to using mediums not mentioned?

I am also getting package bees. Would anything be different about installing the bees with mediums?

Yes, I run all mediums (except for about two hives I didn't get changed over from deeps and one experiment in Dadant Deeps).

The only real difference is that three mediums equal two deeps, so you want to take that into account for overwintering etc. That and it is MUCH easier and more versital to run all the same size so you can save some honey back from supers to boost light hives in the fall and move brood or honey up a box to open up clogged brood nests.

I'm only buying eight frame boxes now because I got tired of the 10 frame mediums.

One 10 frame deep full of honey weighs 90 pounds. One 10 frame medium full of honey weighs 60 pounds. One 8 frame medium full of honey weighs 48 pounds.

I also run a several long hives (also all mediums) so I lift even less. I will move to more of those this year.

I have pictures of the long hives as well as eight frame hives and mixed up hives with ten frame brood boxes and eight frame supers.

>The only downside mentioned concerns the acquisition of nucs. Is that a big deal? How often would a hobbyist purchase a nuc?

In 31 years of beekeeping I've never bought a nuc.

>Are there other downsides to using mediums not mentioned?

Some people will say they are more expensive in the sense that a medium box with medium frames costs about the same as a deep box with deep frames and you get less comb. Also you put together ten frames and you get more comb for that work. But I don't see any disadvantage at all.

>I am also getting package bees. Would anything be different about installing the bees with mediums?

Are you saying you are raising queens by removing two frames of bees with brood, placing the frames into a five frame nuc box, and letting them make their own queen. If so I am wondering what kind of success rate you are having? Also I am assuming they would be young Bees not feild Bees are you feeding the Nucs to get them started?